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Sara S
03-25-2012, 05:20 PM
Humour for smart people


The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.


Here are the winners:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.



2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.



4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)



11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.



17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.


The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.



5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.



13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

Dixon
03-25-2012, 08:37 PM
This material has been circulating on the 'Net for years. Most if not all of it is indeed from the Washington Post Style Invitational (WPSI). Just for the record, it's not the "Mensa" Invitational; Mensa has nothing to do with it. And I have no idea why the same old material circulates on the 'Net year after year when, with a total of nearly 1000 weekly contests over the last 19 years, there's scads of equally funny material that could be shared but isn't. They've had scores and scores of different types of contests, some repeatedly, some only once, but they're nearly all about some kind of word play. In addition to the 2 kinds of contest represented in the initial post of this thread, others range from the annual obituary poems to "write a funny review for products sold on Amazon" to variations on Jeopardy like choosing sentences from the Washington Post to write funny questions for, to funny analogies, "your mama" jokes, funny fortune cookie fortunes, 25-words-or-less short stories, rewriting the national anthem, etc. etc.

I've been a WPSI "Loser" (that's what they call their contest winners) for about a year and a half and have had the honor of "getting ink" (i.e., getting an entry printed) over 40 times so far, including first place ("the Inker", a small reproduction of Rodin's The Thinker with a bag over its head) once and a runner-up prize (a clever, specially designed Loser t-shirt) once. Most of my inks have been honorable mentions (I average about 2 of those a month) so my refrigerator is half covered with fridge magnets in 4 different clever designs (that's the prize for honorable mentions). There's an active WPSI Loser community in the Washington DC area, with regular parties, awards ceremonies, etc. but as a Californian, I sadly must participate from a distance. But it's lots of fun, especially when you see your humor in a major publication like the Washington Post and know that you're bringing laughter to thousands of people.

Those of you who would like to try competing for "ink" against some of the best short humor writers in the world, or would just like to peruse some of the past contest archives, are invited to check out the WPSI at the Post's website here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/AB15r7D_linkset.html